The present invention relates generally to vehicles which artificially generate predetermined sounds, such as effect sounds and/or musical sounds, in response to any of predetermined traveling (running) states and operational state of the vehicle. More particularly, the present invention to an improved vehicle which allows a user to change or modify a sound to be artificially generated in response to any of a plurality of traveling and operational states so that a sound suiting a user's preference can be generated at any necessary time, and a method for auditorily informing particular states of a vehicle
There have been known vehicles which can generate predetermined sounds, such as effect sounds and/or musical sounds, in response to any of traveling and operational states of the vehicle. Namely, some vehicles today, such as motor vehicles and motor cycles, are designed to generate, in response to a predetermined traveling or operational state of the vehicle, predetermined sounds, such as effect sounds and/or musical sounds, appealing to the auditory sense of the driver (human operator of the vehicle) and/or pedestrians, in order to inform the driver of the predetermined traveling or operational state of the vehicle or call attention of the pedestrians and the like to the vehicle. For example, when a vehicle is running at more than a predetermined high speed, the vehicle generates speed warning sounds, such as “pikon pikon” (Japanese onomatopoeia), to call the driver's attention to the high-speed traveling state of the vehicle. When a winker or blinker (direction indicator) has been operated by the driver, the vehicle generates winker blinking sounds, such as “tick-tack” (English onomatopoeia), to inform the driver of the vehicle's operational state. Further, when a vehicle is moving backward, the vehicle generates predetermined warning, such as “beep beep” (English onomatopoeia) or “moving back, moving back”, to call attention of not only the driver but also pedestrians. Also under development today are electrically-powered vehicles, such as electric scooters and electric cars, which are driven to travel by an electric motor. To secure their silent operation, such electromotive vehicles are arranged to deliberately generate false engine sounds so as to inform the driver of the traveling and operational states of the vehicle or call attention of pedestrians an the like to the vehicle.
However, sounds, such as predetermined effect sounds and/or musical sounds, generated by the conventional vehicles in accordance with a plurality of factors, i.e. traveling and operational states of the vehicles, are similar, stereotyped (standardized), monotonous sounds completely lacking playfull touches, and these sounds can not be changed as desired by the users. Thus, the sounds generated by the conventional vehicles are very inconvenient in that they sometimes fail to appropriately call attention of the driver and pedestrians to the vehicle so that the driver and pedestrians may be endangered. Namely, where similar, stereotyped, monotonous sounds are generated from various vehicles, the driver and pedestrians tend to get too accustomed to the sounds and can not quickly identify which of many vehicles around them is generating the sounds. Consequently, the conventional vehicles can not call proper attention of the driver and pedestrians. Because, as noted above, the existing vehicles can only generate similar, stereotyped, monotonous sounds in accordance with any of traveling states (e.g., accelerating state) and operational states (e.g., operational state of a winker, steering wheel or accelerator) and can not change the sounds in accordance with driver's preference, there have been encountered the problem that not only operating the vehicle tends to be uninteresting and boring to the driver but also the incapability to positively call attention of the driver and pedestrians would endanger the driver and pedestrians.